“How fallacious are human expectations! The same wave that cast the little orphan on the shores of time, bore the mother to the ocean of eternity. With a smile of perfect confidence, she gave the bud of promise into the arms of my mother, saying, this is yours, the last gift of the dying Morna—a precious pledge of her unwavering trust in your affection. And most faithfully was that pledge redeemed by my mother! from that moment did the little Morna lie in her bosom, and receive all the tenderness of maternal care. Having a few months previously lost her only child, an infant twelve months old, all her tenderness was now centred in her new charge, whose beauty and sprightliness promised to repay all her attention.
“Ridgely was ordered to join his regiment and proceed to Ireland, where a rebellion had recently broken out. In departing, he bathed the little orphan with his tears, and renewed the gift to his sister, not knowing that he should ever behold her more. The child grew; the charms of her mind and person fast unfolded in the sunshine of my mother's love, and she soon became the joy and pride of her heart. Her father returned to England when she was four years old, and had the long wished for happiness of clasping his beloved child, the image of his lost wife, to his bosom; and the shattered fragments of his heart were gathered again around his infant daughter. How gratifying to him, to see how powerfully she felt the tie of birth! The highest boon she could ask, was to sit on her father's knee, and lean her bright check on his heart, while she persuaded him to stay with her, and she would love him ‘as much as aunt Ashton.’ Among the ‘dire chimeras’ of the nursery, she had heard many tales of the ‘wild Irish,’ and her little heart beat with anxious fears for her father's safety; she could not be quieted until he promised not to go among them any more.
“But now the young Morna was herself to be the adventurer. Major Ashton (my father) was commanded to embark with his regiment for the American colonies. This was unexpected and sad news to my dear parents; but there was no time to parley. The yoke of servitude began to sit uneasily on the necks of the colonists, under the growing demands of government—and an increased army was necessary to enforce submission. With decision and promptitude worthy of a better cause, my father obeyed the summons. The military hero is bred in the school of suffering and self-denial. A separation from all the endearments of social and domestic life, he considers one of the necessary consequences of the service, and he submits with dignity. Such was the conduct of Colonel Ridgely, in parting with his only child. His tears fell on her cheek, while with trembling fingers he threw back the thick curls from her forehead, that he might behold all of a face so lovely and so beloved. It was happy for Morna that she could not comprehend the fullness of his agony. She knew that she was her father's darling, and her heart beat in unison with his as far as she understood his feelings; but the page of the future is gilded with bright hues in childhood, and she readily yielded to the soothing assurances of her aunt, that either she would return to England, or her father be sent to America. So she was comforted, and her thoughts were diverted by the wonderful and mysterious preparations (as it seemed to her) her aunt was making to go away. In the course of a month she bade adieu to the white cliffs of Albion; and after a tedious voyage of thirty-eight days, Morna's uncle pointed out to her the distant shores of the western world. She gazed on the prospect with wonder-waiting eyes, for she had never thought of any land so far from her home and country.
“Major Ashton's troops were landed at Boston; but as that post was well supplied, the reinforcements were stationed in the various commercial towns along the seaboard, to enforce compliance with the new system of taxation. He was ordered to Charleston, in South Carolina; and after a stormy cruise of ten days arrived in harbor and disembarked his forces, making Charleston his head quarters. For the sake of brevity, I must pass over many intervening circumstances, and even years, not necessary to the main interest of my story. I must not omit, however, to mention that my mother was called, the second year of her residence here, to experience the bitterest of all calamities, in the death of her beloved husband, who fell a victim to the fever of the climate. I was an infant at that time, but I can imagine the desolation of her soul, left a widow, and a stranger in a foreign land; and my earliest recollections of her are associated with times, when she sat silent, and almost unheeding my importunity to know what made her weep so much. I find a letter from Colonel Ridgely to my mother, written during that year, informing her that his regiment would sail in a few days for the East Indies, to relieve another, which was suffering greatly from disease. ‘It is uncertain,’ he says, ‘how long we may continue on this station, though the present prospect is, that we shall only act as a temporary relief.’ He speaks of his dear child, and the anxious and melancholy thoughts that fill his mind, when he reflects on the distance and the time that must separate him from her.
“But time, as it passed the young Morna, had a dove's wing. Her bark of happiness was borne smoothly and joyfully down the current of life. Young hope spread her sail, and no cloud dimmed the bright horizon. The toys of childhood were gradually laid aside for the pleasures and occupations of intellectual cultivation. My mother, while she guarded against the perversion of the superior talents of her pupil, spared no expense in adorning her mind with every lasting and lovely accomplishment. But of all adornings, she considered that of a meek and quiet spirit to be of greatest price, having learned it in the school of sad experience; and to this end she labored with the waywardness of childhood and the vanity of youth, believing that they who sow in hope will reap in joy. And such was her recompense. The natural sensibilities of her niece were exquisite: she trembled lest by taking a wrong direction they should prove the scourge of her life. Byron says,
——‘Our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert.’
Far otherwise was it with my lovely cousin. Many sweet and endearing instances of her goodness my memory still retains. She was my mother's almoner to the cottages of the poor. On these errands I was frequently her companion; and though my wayward and loitering step exercised her patience in no small degree, she never chid me in any voice but that of love, or denied me any innocent gratification, however great the self-denial it imposed on her. You will not wonder that she was the idol of the indigent and helpless. Among this mass of people, the African slaves excited her warmest sympathy—evinced in benevolence of the most practical sort. Instead of joining her schoolmates on holidays in selfish recreations, she would petition her aunt to carry some nice soup to aunt Dinah, or to read the bible to blind Betty who loved to hear it so much. I believe they looked upon her as a ministering angel; something celestial compounded of a purer flesh and blood than sinful mortals, ‘God bless and love you Miss Morn; you are too pretty for this world!’ was their usual salutation.
“When my mother arrived in Charleston, she sought out a faithful servant as a nurse for her young family. Margaret was her name, which we soon contracted into the endearing appellative of ‘Mammy Marget.’ She was the most devoted and faithful servant I ever knew. I loved and venerated her next to my mother. She doated on my cousin; with watchful fidelity she guarded her health and happiness so far as her limited sphere extended, and was rewarded with the deep and tender attachment of a grateful heart.
“In her school, Morna was a general favorite. Arbitress in every disagreement, her candor and disinterested kindness could admit no appeal from its fair and equal decision. With Mary Percy, one of her classmates, a girl of congenial tastes and feelings, she was very intimate. The rocks and dells in these environs still bear memorials of their merry gambols and rambles amongst the wild luxuriance of nature. Alfred Percy, also, the brother of the young lady, and two years older, was frequently one of the party, and performed wonders of agility and bold adventure in various feats of climbing, leaping, and swimming, any of which he would carry to the utmost extent of possibility to oblige or amuse Morna. In a short time he had so won her admiration as to be her beau ideal of all that was noble and elegant: however, she was not the girl to be fascinated on a slight acquaintance. The current of her affections ran in too deep a channel to be ruffled by the wing of every bird that flitted over it. My mother's experienced eye discerned the growing attachment of Percy towards her lovely niece, and while she would not have influenced her decision in a matter where the affections are so deeply interested, she hoped the time might come when she would not be insensible to the love of one so worthy of her heart and her choice.
“We must turn from the visions of youth and the dream of love to our political horizon, which now grew darker and darker. Our colonies had reached the lowest point of oppression and injustice; they felt the burden intolerable; and rising, threatened to heave off the weight that was crushing them. You recollect the affair at Lexington struck the first note of revolt, which was re-echoed by most of the States in the Union. South Carolina was, perhaps, at that time, the most loyal of all to the British government; but even here there were not a few whose hearts swelled with indignation at her tyrannical exactions. My mother's feelings on this subject were identified with those of the suffering colonists, and she felt that if she had a son able to do his country service, she would buckle on his armor, and speed him with her prayers, in the cause of freedom and suffering humanity.